From The Sports Editor's Desk: Each Sunday morning, Sports Editor Chris Carr or Senior Assistant Sports Editor Naila-Jean Meyers write to Star Tribune Sports readers.
Why we published traditional sports stories on the day inequality stopped sports
An important, meaningful demonstration across sports demanded nearly all of our attention and resources Thursday. Here's why we still offered coverage outside of this moment.
August 30, 2020 at 1:59PM
. . .
On a historic day across American sports, we published a story about fishing. And another on the Twins' bullpen workloads. And … motorcycling? Yes, motorcycling.
Thursday was powerful and unprecedented. Athletes stopped playing games and demanded we pay closer attention to their pleas for racial justice. Why would anything but this be written on this day?
We had 11 different headlines in the Friday morning paper touching various angles of Thursday's professional sports protests that postponed every game in every sport. More than two-thirds of our staff, 20-some journalists, reacted to this important moment. Several others, however, stayed on their course. This helped us achieve one of our daily goals: publish stories and content that will appeal to all kinds of different readers. We don't publish the Variety section, but variety is something we strive for everyday in Sports. When you see a story on a day such as Thursday that is 1,000 miles from the main theme of the moment, that's our "something for everyone" thinking in play.
There are days when we have a flood of game coverage and little in the way of storytelling or features. There are slower days when we give you longer reads and columns. Most days, however, we lean pretty hard into our "something for everyone" approach. It allows our writers and editors to keep ambitions high, without dialing back if other beats make news. American sports stopped playing games Thursday, and we blitzed that topic. But we didn't tell writers and editors not involved with that coverage to come back tomorrow.
Athletes fighting for more attention on racial justice dominated our Friday Sports front page, rightfully. But there it was, on the backpage, a column about motorcycling (and a delightful one at that).
Some readers are encouraged by us covering a wide range of topics, especially the difficult ones, in the sports universe. I was proud of our reaction and our coverage this week to this meaningful moment. Other readers say: just give me the sports. I am fortunate to be able to say: we can do both.
Chris Carr, sports editor
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